Accelerated Business Degree from a known college

[dfrecore]

What's the reason you want a more "better viewed" school than a state university like TESU or UMPI? What will that school give you that these won't? Because, for a Marketing degree, I'm not certain that you'll get a bang for your buck from a more well known school - especially if it's not local to where you live, so the networking will be close to non-existent.

[ss20ts]

What's the reason you want a more "better viewed" school than a state university like TESU or UMPI?  What will that school give you that these won't?  Because, for a Marketing degree, I'm not certain that you'll get a bang for your buck from a more well known school - especially if it's not local to where you live, so the networking will be close to non-existent.

I have to write a paper on marketing roles for a class this week and the job titles we were given to search have ridiculous salaries for the degree requirements. One of marketing positions has an average salary of $36K. What? All of the roles we have to research make $60K or less a year. It was shocking! No way I would spend a chunk of change on a marketing degree. There's not a ton of money in marketing for those working behind the scenes unfortunately. Once one has a few years experience, the college name on the degree isn't much use.

[freeloader]

The proverbial $64,000 question, OP…what’s your budget?

[bjcheung77]

@Hannahriri, Welcome to the board.  You've provided us the basic info, somewhat short and sweet, if you have the time, please complete the template and last post addendum here: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...Area-works  

Depending on what those 90/120 credits you have are, you may very well be able to complete a degree in the next few months.  If you have even more energy, money, time, you can ladder that up to another competency-based masters to finish off your studies.

I suggest sticking with the public or state based institutions such as TESU, UMPI, UMASS, etc before venturing off to Excelsior, PUG, SNHU, WGU, etc.

[Hannahriri]

What's the reason you want a more "better viewed" school than a state university like TESU or UMPI?  What will that school give you that these won't?  Because, for a Marketing degree, I'm not certain that you'll get a bang for your buck from a more well known school - especially if it's not local to where you live, so the networking will be close to non-existent.

This is kind of a silly goal, but I really want to work in the same workplace as my mom. Her job is a healthcare marketing job, and while they don't need the most prestigious college, they do somewhat care about the college. (I know they wouldn't accept a college with a 100% acceptance rat I already have some marketing experience with my current job (I send out email blasts, follow up on leads, write scripts for our Insta/Tiktok). I am currently 24 and took the most random classes at community college until I graduated with an associates in Medical Assisting by just forcing myself to pick one and stick with it. It wasn't until recently I realize that most schools will not do the competency route, and I will have to be in school longer. I just asked in case I missed something.
My budget is 25,000, and I am eligible for FAFSA. I am able to take about 6 months off work to focus heavily on my classes. I have 108 Credit Hours, plus the ability to take some Sophia courses beforehand. I am very aware that I have been poorly planning things so far to achieve this.

I'm actually really sorry if it seemed like I didn't view WGU or UMPI as a valid school, I don't think that myself at all. I didn't mean to offend anyone.

[ss20ts]

How do you know they won't accept a college with a 100% rate? A lot of colleges are now accepting most everyone. I can't imagine HR having enough time to be that thorough about anyone's degree. Most colleges have never been heard of by anyone outside the region.

Save your $25K and spend most of it on a master's degree such as an MBA. Get a less expensive bachelor's degree and ladder up.

There's only a handful of schools where you can complete a degree in under a year and it doesn't sound like any of them are good enough for you. You already have experience so get the piece of paper that says you know your stuff as fast and as cheap as possible. Then you can spend your money on a master's from a school that's better known where you live.

[freeloader]

Not going to weigh in on whether you should do a UMPI/TESU/WGU degree or one with more of a name brand. There are a lot of schools that may provide you more of a name brand and do so within your budget, but they are definitely going to be on the high end of your time spectrum, if not exceed it. That said, some schools to consider that I think are a bit more name brand/will-known should include:

Penn State World Campus—same Penn State degree you would get on campus. Bachelor’s degrees available in marketing and finance. In your general price range. Minimum Penn State/non-transfer hours to complete degree: 36. Bonus points for being a Northeastern school with strong alumni presence in your part of the world.

CUNY Professional Studies—General business degree. Obviously a well-known commodity where you like. Surprisingly well-ranked university. Transfer in up to 105 credits; if you were in a CUNY CC, should be no trouble getting your credits recognized. Within your budget.

Also:
UMass-Dartmouth
Rutgers-Camden
Washington State
University of Arkansas-Little Rock
West Virginia University
University of Arkansas-Fayetteville
Oregon State University

The problem for all of these, it strikes me, is you likely are going to need to do more than the minimum number of hours if you don’t have a lot of business coursework, slowing you down further and adding to your costs.

[Insert Name]

Would SUNY Empire fit the bill for a “known college?” If so, that MIGHT be a route to go. My GF went there for a short time. She was majoring in Business Management and Economics with a Healthcare focus, or some title that would mean that.

The upsides: if the name is worth recognition, it may check that box for you. They actual seem very generous with alt credits, life learning, etc. Their online student prices seem to be less per semester than TESU, even if you are out of state.

The downsides: the counselor for that department (or at least the one she has) is absolutely worthless and makes the process A LOT harder than it should be because he knows and does nothing. You have to take a class with the counselor to basically build your own degree that fits their “learning objectives,” and because of this the closest I can find to a degree requirement is some degrees have a sample. 31 required credits through them. 48 (it may be little less, but definitely in the 40s) required upper level credits.

In summary: from my experience, we looked back into it after she did some community college courses, took some Sophia, took some ACTFL, etc. and it seems like an option that may work for someone with 90ish credits (at least 21 of them being upper level), but the whole process just feels kind of hoakie. A person could come in with all the credits, take the counseling class and 3 others their first semester, expecting to take the last 4 the next semester, and be told “naaaah…. I know we expect you to tell us what classes fit the requirements, but those credits don’t really fit. You should go study street art and body tattooing (yes. Those were on one of the examples), and stay another semester.” If a person were to have everything planned out, start from scratch, use this forum, take that counseling class first, and just run alt credits concurrent with the SUNY courses, the year or so process may not be bad. For someone with a bunch of credits who wants to be able to map them against requirements to see where they sit and make a decision, I feel like the process may be an annoying grind. Either way, just throwing it out there, in case it does fit what you are looking for.

[sarahmac]

Not going to weigh in on whether you should do a UMPI/TESU/WGU degree or one with more of a name brand. There are a lot of schools that may provide you more of a name brand and do so within your budget, but they are definitely going to be on the high end of your time spectrum, if not exceed it. That said, some schools to consider that I think are a bit more name brand/will-known should include:

Penn State World Campus—same Penn State degree you would get on campus. Bachelor’s degrees available in marketing and finance. In your general price range. Minimum Penn State/non-transfer hours to complete degree: 36. Bonus points for being a Northeastern school with strong alumni presence in your part of the world.

CUNY Professional Studies—General business degree. Obviously a well-known commodity where you like. Surprisingly well-ranked university. Transfer in up to 105 credits; if you were in a CUNY CC, should be no trouble getting your credits recognized. Within your budget.

Also:
UMass-Dartmouth
Rutgers-Camden
Washington State
University of Arkansas-Little Rock
West Virginia University
University of Arkansas-Fayetteville
Oregon State University

The problem for all of these, it strikes me, is you likely are going to need to do more than the minimum number of hours if you don’t have a lot of business coursework, slowing you down further and adding to your costs.

I concur with PSU if she's eligible for full FAFSA. It is a world top 100 university. My husband's first degree was from there and between a couple $1000 institutional scholarships and Pell he paid a couple k out of pocket total per year, even with two minors. Same degree as University Park students, and you are rated with them for honors classification.

--
For OP:

PSU runs three semesters a year, and for full Pell you need to take 12 credits a semester minimum. If you take >=12 credits in all three semesters, additional Pell is made available so that you get three semesters worth a year instead of two. That gives you financial aid for the required 36 institutional credits in a year.

There is no guarantee that PSU will take all your existing credits, but it may be worth having an evaluation done (you can also use their tool here to look yourself, and if any RA courses are not in the tool yet follow the instructions here). You can also search SDC/Sophia by inputting American Council on Education as the Institution, and then Sophia etc. in the search field.

The evaluation in this case would be important because PSU doesn't really go in for the whole general electives thing for their business degrees. Electives are area-of-study-specific, and their marketing degree requires 25 classes (some are 4 credits) after the Gen Eds. To avoid having way more than the required 36 credits to complete you would need to make sure you transferred in as many matching courses as possible.

They take CLEPS/DSST's, and some ACE too. I can find 5 CLEPS that knock out 5 of the required 25 classes for their marketing major (3 in the Prescribed Courses section, 1 in the Additional Courses section, 1 in the Supporting Courses and Related Areas) Calculus, Micro, Macro, Principles of Management, and Principles of Marketing. That leaves 20 major classes.

So to finish in a year while only taking the required minimum 36 credits, you would need to find at least 8 more classes to transfer in if you have not already taken suitable ones. They don't have many SDC courses evaluated in the tool, but it seems they are generally willing to take them. You could consider gambling and taking a couple Upper Level SDC courses in Business/Management/Marketing/Finance etc. to cover the three remaining classes in the "Supporting Courses and Related Areas", leaving 17.

--

For alternative majors, Finance you would be in a similar sort of position. Out of the 30 required classes, 3-4 of the prescribed courses (Micro, Macro, Principles of Management, possibly CAS 100 if you have taken speech before), 2 in the Additional Courses (SDC College Comp I is ENGL 15, Calculus), and 5 in the Supporting Courses and Related Areas. That leaves 20 major classes. The Additional Courses section further requires you to "select 6 credits from FIN or other business areas", which is doable with SDC. You may also be able to get them to bring in SDC Business 303: Management Information Systems as MIS 204 - according to the transfer database nobody has tried before. That would take it down to 17, same as marketing.

I am not sure why finance is your backup though if you want to work in marketing. As an alternative to Marketing, if working in marketing is your end goal, I would be more inclined to suggest Strategic Communications. It is not a business degree and so there are more slots for electives. You are more likely to maximize your transfer credit here.

--

Obviously, you would also have to CLEP/Sophia etc. the Gen Eds as appropriate if there are requirements you haven't already met. Without knowing what you have taken before I can't help there.

One other thing to note: they have a secondary credit rule in addition to the 36 institutional credits - only 30 of the final 60 must be taken at PSU. After enrolling you can carry on taking credits elsewhere and transferring them in. Meaning, if after your evaluation you were short a couple of their highly specific gen eds or pre reqs, you could bring them in later if you found somewhere cheaper to take them.

[bjcheung77]

@Hannahriri, you have 108 credits, that's more than the 90/120 I thought I read earlier... Anyways, your original thought may be the best option, completing a faster undergrad with graded credits at UMPI.  But instead of going for the University of Miami Masters, you can go for Boston U for roughly $24K or a similar ranked university through MOOC on Coursera/Edx, you get the same degree but at a fraction of the price!  In fact, the U of Illinois-IMSM can be completed for $11-12K, even cheaper if you get the 70% scholarship.

This is what I see as an optional path for you, by using your financial aid/grants you can possibly get the UMPI BA or BABA undergrad degree very inexpensively and end with more graded credits that should boost your GPA.  You can then ladder up to the U of Illinois MSM degree that can be completed in 1 year because you already have up to a max of 24K saved up for your education.  You're within budget!  Check the coursera/edx offerings...